The race to the moon is underway
China and Russia on one side and the United States and its partners on the other
The race to the moon is underway, with China and Russia on one side and the United States and its partners on the other. However, there is no consensus about avoiding conflict over the same moon base site. Lawmakers and space policy analysts are concerned about how to avoid conflict in space if international laws and policies on Earth no longer apply. Many terrestrial military doctrines are not applicable in space, or at least not as applicable. If you get beyond 50 miles, or at least 62 miles, suddenly different rules apply. There’s already some aggressive international elbowing over the rules of satellite operations. As with the moon, there’s no consensus yet on how to respond to aggression in Earth's orbit.
In 1967, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a treaty on the use of outer space that promised cooperation and banned nuclear weapons, military maneuvers, and military installations off-planet. The agreement also requires countries to take “appropriate international consultations” b…
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